So Tamara and I are going to enter the Snake River canoe race in a few weeks.
http://www.snakerivercanoerace.org/
And I thought it would be a good idea to scout out the race section of the river. We put in at the start and floated down river 14 miles to out house. We went through some nice class 1 rapids. One area was at least 1/4 mile of constant somewhat technical rapids and that was cool. Max got a bit stressed every time he heard the rapids [which we called 'bumps'] and would hang tight on to mom. We told him the Dad was pretty good at moving around rocks and even if we did fall in the water his life jacket would keep him afloat. He still seemed scared especially when I would scrape a rock. We kept telling him not to worry and he started to seem better about the rapids.
So we were only about a mile from out house at the congruence of the Snake and Knife when we got stuck on a big flat rock just beneath the water level. Really there weren't any signs of rapids here, but we were stuck right in the middle of the canoe [which has a flat bottom] on the mid part of the big rock. The current spun us 360 degrees and I started to bounce and pry the paddle to help get us off the rock... and suddenly we took on just a little water from the broadside of the canoe and the next second we were swamping it. The canoe started to flip on top of Tam and Max and they were nearly forced under. I tried to keep the canoe off of them and was able to right it in the water with all our stuff in the canoe with the water. Tam hurt her ankle, but was able to get Max to shore.
At the point before we swamped, there were 4 dogs that ran down from a home right in next to us on the river. They were barking like crazy and luck for us got the attention of their owner. A woman from the home saw us swamp and came to help Tamara and Max. Max kept screaming "Help us!". She then got her husband to help me empty the water from the canoe. They gave us some dry clothes [water was quite cold and it was a cool day at most about 50 degrees] and drove Max and Tam to our house. I then drove the canoe the rest of the way.
So ironically, Tamara found out on the drive home that the husband was a Psychologist in Mora with a private practice. I keep thinking, 'what a way to meet your peers and/or neighbors, just swamp your canoe out in front of their house'. :)
In the end, all I lost was my GPS unit [bummer!]. The cell phone dried out and so did our damp selves. It could have been much worse had we dumped up river since we would have froze. Max had a little horse voice by the next day, but is already over that. Turned out to be an interesting adventure and now Max really doesn't seem scared at all. I think the worse case fear of him falling in has come true and he survived it fine, so he's good to go. He's telling people how he swam with his arms and kicked his legs. :)
Tam and I are now ready to hit this race weekend after next! And I'm plenty interested in scoping out the Kettle and Snake areas where there are class II, III and IV [maybe not]. I know there is a section of the Kettle that is class I, II for a solid six miles.... that would be a rush!
